[Excerpt from our upcoming book Solutionary Rail, a people-powered campaign to electrify America's railroads and open corridors to a clean energy future. This section was inspired by our recent solidarity trip to the Standing Rock encampment to resist the Dakota Access Pipeline. It is authored by Patrick Mazza and Bill Moyer.]

Another milestone was crossed yesterday with the completion of the Solutionary Rail color renderings!

I am deeply grateful to artist J. Craig Thorpe for his fine work and attention to detail throughout the process. It has been an honor to work with Craig.

Support from people like YOU made it possible to commision such beautiful work by the country's most renowned railroad illustrator. Our thank you gifts for those who pitch-in to this project include the poster and even prints of the renderings by artist J. Craig Thorpe pictured below. Check them out!

At the 2016, The Washington State Labor Council (WSLC) Convention, the membership unanimously approved a resolution supporting Backbone Campaign's Solutionary Rail proposal! That's right, another essential labor partner has locked arms with us to reshape the future of US rail. At the WSLC's annual convention last week the members voted unanimously - without amendments - to support a resolution drafted by our labor allies! [This is HUGE!]

After years of warning elected official about the inevitability of an oil train disaster in the Pacific NW, last Friday, June 3 we had one.

Only the Fates get credit for averting human tragedy last Friday's explosive oil train derailment in Mosier, Oregon. What the Mosier explosive derailment is “blowing up” is the already robust extraction resistance and climate justice movement in the Pacific Northwest. Regular people who have been begging elected officials to say “NO” to Bakken oil trains and other transport infrastructure threatening our communities and beloved environment are outraged. Some of those people will preparing for action at Backbone Campaign's 8th annual Localize This! Action Camp. We welcome you to join us there as well.

But Backbone Campaign has ALWAYS asserted that our "No!" is yet more powerful when we have a compelling and strategic "YES!"

[by the Solutionary Rail Team (First published as Op-ed at Truth-Out, May 12, 2016] In 2013, the Backbone Campaign drew together a national team of rail experts, economists and public interest advocates to develop a proposal that would address the dependence of rail on bulk coal and increasing bulk shale and tar sands oil shipments. Motivated by concerns ranging from climate disruption to public health and safety threats caused by the cargo, the goal was to provide new economic options for rail and rail workers that would reduce reliance on fossil fuel transportation, and make rail itself an engine to build an economy based on clean, renewable energy. The resulting proposal is called Solutionary Rail.]